


Cusp

by edy



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Demaverse, Established Relationship, M/M, Magical Realism, Past Torture, Shapeshifting, dema
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 13:19:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edy/pseuds/edy
Summary: The vultures were overhead, and they were still singing of victory.





	Cusp

**Author's Note:**

> inspiration: "levitate" by twenty one pilots

When Tyler arrives in the clearing, the sun rises over the mountains and the evergreens, the birds caw their welcoming song, and Josh turns his head from the dying campfire. No more than a handful of ash now, the leftover flames crackled and singed until Josh could not bear to hear the sound from his tent. He emerged moments before Tyler's return, cursing the kid who left the flames open to the early morning air as he unzipped his pants.

Tyler walks with his shoulders slumped and his arms over his chest. He wears camouflage, yellow tape scratched off and his hair a stupid mess of curls and debris. "Hey," he tells Josh, as he enters the center of camp. He moves his shoulders, up and down, forward and backward, but Josh is looking to his feet and whispering a quiet greeting back while ducking carefully into the safety of their tent. His feet are cold, and he wraps them up first once he's inside.

Climbing in behind Josh, Tyler hangs his feet from the tent opening to discard his boots before dropping them at the bottom of their tent, away from their bed things. Josh watches him for a moment, absently sliding the zipper on his coat along the teeth underneath the blanket. He says, "Must have traveled pretty far just to take a shit."

Lying down with a grunt, an exhausted groan, and what Josh can only describe as a whine, Tyler's body unfolds above the blankets. He stretches out his legs and sticks his arms beneath him. He's shaking.

Josh picks twigs from Tyler's hair. "Hemorrhoids?" he asks, and shifts his weight in order to ease the blankets out from under Tyler. Tyler's deadweight, cheek pressed to a hoodie they're using for a pillow, lips parted, eyes open and focused on nothing at all. They're glazed over, shiny like light hitting glass, and don't react to Josh waving his hand over them. Tyler doesn't even blink. Propping himself up by an elbow, Josh inches his fingertip closer and closer to Tyler's eyeball until he's right upon Tyler's pupil and uncomfortable with the possibility of Tyler's eyelids closing around his finger.

Blanket now over Tyler and being tucked under him by Josh's mindful hands, Tyler makes the whining sound again. Josh stares at Tyler and continues pushing the blanket under his legs, his hips, his torso. At his shoulders, Tyler's whine turns into a curt hiss of warning. A wounded animal ready to bite, Josh's eyes never waver from Tyler's face in his movements. He wants to look away, wants to yank the blankets over his head to avoid seeing Tyler's face react to the existence of nothing. Even the pain his body seems to be going through doesn't reach his face. Tyler's still staring ahead, still open eyes and parted lips. His lips are chapped. Two tears roll down a cheek.

"It's here…?" Josh tests the waters, ignoring the ache in his stomach as he dips his hand under Tyler's shoulder. Left shoulder, right shoulder, it doesn't matter. Both evoke the same whine, the same tears on his cheeks, the same dead eyes and, now, trembling lips.

And then, Josh smells the blood. There're traces of it on his fingers from where he touched Tyler's shoulders. It's on Tyler's clothes, sticky and wet beneath his clothes. Tyler remains perfectly poised. He speaks, too, slow, the bottom half of his face the only part of him that moves. "It's just my hemorrhoids," he says to Josh.

"You don't have hemorrhoids," Josh says. "I was making a joke… unless you somehow got them since the last time I was down there."

Tyler is a porcelain doll. He doesn't move, doesn't speak, and his lips are parted and showing his bottom row of crooked, crooked teeth.

Josh listens to the birds overhead and says, "In a few hours, can I patch you up?" He doesn't expect a verbal response. He doesn't expect any type of response, but the tears roll down Tyler's cheeks, and he takes that. He takes it.

When Josh closes his eyes, Tyler closes his eyes, too.

*

Josh rouses silently, just an opening of his eyes. It's slow, a curtain reveal for the main attraction.

Tyler's there, eyes shut and a little blue in the face. His lips are pale, cracking, parted and leaking drool. The dark circles under his eyes are almost black.

Josh goes, "Hi," and Tyler doesn't react. It's likely he hadn't heard.

A nip is in the air. The sun pokes its way higher and higher into the sky. And the birds, the birds are singing their good-morning chorus. Josh doesn't mind their voices. In the right setting, it could be almost peaceful to lie on the ground and become overwhelmed with words that hold no meaning to the human ear. It allows the mind to wander and the body to relax, and now, it serves as an alarm.

Maybe an hour has gone by. Maybe two hours have passed.

Tyler coughs himself awake.

Josh is unsure what to do. Tyler's arching his back, bending his neck to send the spittle onto his own chest, and seizing rather violently. He's harsh, wheezing, honking, even. Comical in a different context, Josh only comes face-to-face with misery as he watches Tyler goose-honk his way off their bedroll and into the thin sliver of grass between tent and makeshift mattress. His hands aren't underneath him any longer; they're clawing at the earth in an attempt to steady himself in any way he can. Josh reaches out, touching Tyler's shoulders, and Tyler recoils, bucking his head back and nearly missing Josh's face. Josh is quick. He wraps his fingers in the hair at the crown of Tyler's head and holds him up. A step above deadweight, Tyler's able to keep himself upright as he gasps for breath, as he fills his lungs with fresh air, as he struggles to tell Josh, "Thank you."

"No problem," Josh says, and slowly eases Tyler to level ground. "Frog in your throat?"

"Was having a dream where you were fucking my throat," Tyler confesses, candid and cool, almost as if he wasn't about to have his insides flying from his mouth mere seconds ago.

Humming lightly, Josh pulls his legs underneath him, his feet warmer than before, and hooks his arms under Tyler's armpits. Josh pulls Tyler onto the bedroll, Tyler twisting around and wincing in the process. He's sore—for whatever reason, Josh doesn't know, not without an inspection. There isn't much he can do from their tent, though, so he makes do.

"Can you take off your jacket?" he asks, moving onto his hands and knees to pull his bag onto his lap. Down near their shoes at the other side of the tent, he dusts it off the best he can before unbuckling the clasps and taking out a shabby first-aid kit. He dusts this off, too.

Next to him, sitting criss-cross applesauce, Tyler chews on his lips to keep himself from making any distressing noises. His elbows tuck into his sides, and his wrists bend awkwardly, too much at a right angle, in an attempt to remove his jacket. Tyler struggles to even undo a snap. Seeing this, and after hearing Tyler finally letting out a gasp, Josh says, "I can do it," and pops off each snap.

"It hurts." Tyler doesn't look at Josh when he speaks. He's at that middle ground again, eyes like dim light bulbs.

"I know it does, sweet thing." Bowing his head and scooting back to duck down and get a better look, Josh leans in to smell Tyler. Tyler remains upright, remains staring blankly, and Josh can smell soil, the campfire from last night, and the heavy weight of blood—dry now, of course. Josh thinks that's a viable reason to be relieved, but he can't be sure.

The blood's staining the left shoulder of Tyler's hoodie. Like a flower in bloom, Josh presses his palm to the hoodie to check if it is indeed dry. He adds no pressure—hovering mostly—yet, Tyler breaks his statue façade to move away from Josh's hand. "Don't touch me," he says. "Don't even look at me."

"Okay, I won't," Josh says.

"Thank you."

Josh opens the first-aid kit. Bandages scarce, no peroxide, no kind of ointment to speak of, and two needles with little thread, Josh looks at these contents and realizes they might need to go scavenge soon. If he's low on supplies, he knows the rest of the camp may be reaching critical levels, too. It's a frightening thought to go out there with the very high possibility that one of the scavenging group may not return. It's a death mission to leave camp, but Josh would be a liar by saying he hated it out there.

It made him feel small. That feeling, being overwhelmed by the fresh air and the sound of the birds and the rivers and the green—Josh has never seen so much green in his life—it was never a bad sort of feeling. It was freeing. It was being able to step from the safety of a house and not be worried about bishop hands drawing you in with their neon and glass. And while the threat does reside here, it's few and far between.

They had a scare the night they rescued Tyler. In and out, their mission was a complete success with no casualties and the  _p-p-ts-ts-kah_  of their hearts hammering in their chests, akin to drum beats.

Yellow made Tyler alive. Shaving his head gave him a fresh start. Smiling was unfamiliar, but it didn't hurt. And so, they all celebrated in the only way they knew how—with dance, song, and love. Even the birds from above joined with their outstretched wings and bloody beaks parted to sing their own rallying cry.

There was a lull in the festivities, where Tyler touched Josh's shoulder and told him he needed to sit down. Josh patted his back, told him, "That's fine," and sat with him. They were around a campfire, Tyler across from Josh, with their new friends and family dressed in yellow and green all around, making jokes and chatting about how many s'mores they've eaten in one sitting. Josh was staring at Tyler, and Tyler was staring at him, blank and glassy as Josh is so often used to now, and then… Tyler was gone.

Josh didn't know when or how long Tyler was missing, but Josh threw on his jacket and grabbed a torch and went searching. He couldn't stop searching, wouldn't stop, not even to eat or sleep or take care of himself. Tyler had just come back into his life, safe and relatively sound, and to have him snatched away by those bishop hands was too much for Josh to comprehend.

They found him in a ditch. Lying flat on his back, tucked between two rocks, yellow tape scratched off, and sporting blood on his neck and two pupils that didn't know how to respond to light, Tyler made absolutely no indication he was alive. His chest didn't move up and down when he breathed. He didn't blink when hands passed over his eyes. And his lips, his lips were parted and white and showing his crooked, crooked teeth.

Passing his torch to another member of their search party, Josh dropped to his knees and touched Tyler. He expected Tyler to return to his body at far more careful and gentle hands upon him, but Tyler didn't move. He stayed lying there, not breathing, not even seeming like he  _wanted_  to breathe. Josh cradled Tyler's cheek with his left palm as his right pressed to Tyler's neck. He counted. He counted again. It was so faint, if it was even there at all.

Josh attempted CPR. Josh attempted speaking to Tyler as if Tyler could hear. Josh attempted singing the songs he remembered Tyler singing to him late at night when they were bound to their gray rooms.

Tyler knew the ins and outs of their reluctant home as well as the back of his hand. He escaped the walls often and was often dropped back into his room soon after. It didn't bother him. He told Josh he enjoyed the journey, but Josh always saw the hurt in his eyes when he spoke of this.

One evening, after another unsuccessful escape attempt on Tyler's part, Josh said, "Let me try. Tell me where you go, and I'll see if they catch me."

And they didn't catch him. Josh ran through dark caves with only a dim and blinking flashlight in his hand. He didn't pack.

Sitting on Tyler's bed and counting the yellow flowers he found in Tyler's desk, Josh said to Tyler, "I don't remember everything you just told me. I'm going to just roll with it."

Tyler's knuckles were bruised. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. He turned in his chair and rummaged in a desk drawer. "I can draw you a map." He began to shake. He couldn't hold a pen, no matter if he wanted to draw out a map for Josh.

"I don't need a map," Josh said, and stood from the bed. He grabbed Tyler's hands. He hugged Tyler, and Tyler hugged him. "I don't need anything," Josh whispered into Tyler's hair. "They're going to catch me anyway."

But they didn't catch him. They didn't catch him.

So, he had to go back. He had to help Tyler. He couldn't believe his luck and couldn't stop thinking of how Tyler must be torturing himself with the thought of Josh being able to slip through the cracks on a whim, while he suffered time and time again. Was Tyler lying in that bed, spread-eagled and crying, wishing for the worst to happen to Josh? Would he be cursing himself for wishing ill on Josh, if it meant Josh would be back with him? How could his eyes ever hold anything other than the same hurt they always held when the person he labeled his lifeline suddenly wasn't with him anymore?

In that courtyard, their hands slapping together and lips turning white to keep from smiling, Josh and Tyler listened to the rustle of their clothing and what could only be interpreted as love and safety in their movements. Tyler's eyes didn't look dead, then. They were full of life.

And now Tyler's eyes, they looked fake. He was lying there, covered in dirt and blood, so much blood, and Josh sang to him and didn't mind the blood on his hands if it meant Tyler would take another breath with just—one—more—compression.

There was so much blood.

"Stay with me," Josh pleaded.

Their friends were quiet, but he knew what they wanted to tell him.

"Stay with me," he cried.

And Tyler did. After a steady, impactful, and final compression to his sternum, Tyler's fingers curled by his sides, and he arched his back, and he coughed until he honked, until he sat up, until Josh wrapped his arms around him, until they became bathed in the torch light.

He was weak, slumping into Josh's chest and sobbing. He struggled to breathe. He didn't want to move. "Can we stay here?" he asked Josh, blinking and stroking the fine hair along Josh's arms from where Josh pushed up his jacket sleeves. "I don't want to go."

Josh reassured Tyler with back pats, arm pats, head pats. "We can stay here. We can stay here for as long as you need."

"Thank you."

They stayed just for only a few minutes, just enough for Tyler to gather what strength he had left to stand. Josh helped him, arms around him, and they walked slowly, bathed in the torch light. The vultures were overhead, and they were still singing of victory.

Back at camp and safe in their tent, by the glow of a lantern, Josh washed the blood from Tyler's torso and sewed the abrasions along Tyler's shoulders and his neck. It was slow. They didn't talk. Tyler lay down under the blankets and slept soundly. Josh was thankful for the peace, if only for a moment.

Tyler woke an hour later, screaming. Josh saw fright in his eyes, and when he touched Tyler to calm him, Josh felt broken bones along Tyler's sides. He couldn't count them. There were too many.

Tyler was crying. Tyler was saying, "I think they did something to me."

Josh hears Tyler repeat this very same thought now. He's wondering if Tyler will need stitches this time, too, when Tyler says, "I think they did something to me."

The first time, Josh was speechless—not out of shock, but out of unease and confusion. Yes, he had heard rumors and was even at the forefront of experimentation, and yes, he didn't quite know what might have happened every time their nails dug into Tyler. He saw the burn marks along Tyler's body, where those vials of light whittled down to needles could penetrate even the thickest skin. That possibility, that maybe Tyler was forced into more agony and sorrow than what he allowed Josh to see, thinking of it made Josh's heart drop all the way to his toes.

He curls his toes. He stares at the first-aid kit in his lap and decides there  _might_  be enough thread if Tyler's wounds do indeed require stitches. Josh tricks himself into believing this.

"Before or just now?" he asks, finally raising his head and seeing Tyler out of his jacket and his yellow hoodie shoved off his injured shoulder. There's the threat of tears on Tyler's face. Josh doesn't blame him, and he tries so hard not to cry himself once he scoots behind Tyler, applies minimal pressure to Tyler's shoulder, and in turn, releases a loud whine from Tyler's voice box. He apologizes immediately, has to apologize. It hurts—not as much as it hurts Tyler, of course. Of course, Josh knows that. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm so sorry."

Timid, Tyler turns his head to stare at Josh. He's quiet as Josh pulls his legs underneath him and raises onto them to gain some sort of height over Tyler. He inspects slowly. He needs to be careful. And Tyler, he continues sitting and staring at Josh the best he can. "Both," he says, finally. "They did something to me before, and they did something to me just now." Tyler wants to shrug, and he does so painfully. He bites the inside of his cheek, shuts his eyes, and breathes and breathes and breathes.

With more awareness of his own body and what he's able to do, Tyler cups his hands together and brings them to his lips. He blows air into them, becoming more rushed when Josh skims his fingertips along fractures that break his own heart. Josh mumbles an apology. He repeats it again, and then again once Tyler whimpers.

Tyler shakes his head, frustrated more at himself than at Josh's manners. His whimpers taper off into speech, his voice not nearly as strong to form words, but he forces the words out. He speaks to his lap, to his hands slowly opening up to their too-cold tent. "They grabbed me, pulled on me—they tried to steal my  _wings_ —they tried to take me  _again_ ," he says, breaking, and he's curling into himself, knees up, his forehead to his knees, his knees trying to keep him composed, but he's shaking and crying, and Josh can't touch him—he  _can't_ , but he  _needs_  to touch Tyler. Tyler's in too much pain. He's whining, wheezing now, from how much his body struggles to remain together.

Josh wants to shrink into himself. "Yeah," he starts quietly, touching Tyler's biceps and rubbing them, rubbing them. "It feels like you've broken your collarbones." The appropriate words seem lost on Josh. Everything he wants to say are words Tyler may not want to hear, and having his words of concern be twisted into words of malice would do neither of their minds any good. So, Josh doesn't share what he's thinking. He raises his hands. If he had latex gloves, he'd pull and snap them against his wrists, as if to say  _trust me._  Instead, he says, "Can I check your ribs?"

"No," Tyler answers, blunt. He sniffs and rubs his hands into his eyes. Everything's wet. "You don't need to check them," he quickly clarifies, turning his head to glance at Josh. "If my collarbones are broken again, then my ribs are broken again. You don't need to check them."

Again, Tyler lowers his head and focuses on his hands. He shakes them. He curls his fingers around empty air. Josh notes the way Tyler has his elbows tucked into his sides.

Tyler mumbles, "They got my neck."

Tugging the first-aid kit closer, Josh acquiesces to Tyler's wishes. From a coat pocket, he tugs out a bandana, and from his backpack, a canteen. The contents have been inside for a while, but water is water, and Josh tips what he can onto the bandana. The yellow fabric darkens to a mustard color. It matches Tyler's hoodie.

As if he were wielding a feather, Josh washes the blood from the nape of Tyler's neck. Scratches make themselves known, dozens of them that stretch and fade along Tyler's shoulders and down his back. Unlike Tyler's previous injury that paralleled this incident, this time, these scratches aren't deep and don't require stitches. That's lucky. Those wouldn't have been properly treated with what little needle and thread they had in their first-aid kit.

"Okay," Josh says, and stops himself from studying Tyler's pink skin any longer. He grips the bandana and lets the water drip onto their blankets—drip, drip, drip.

"I think I'm going to sleep for a little more," Tyler decides. "Is that okay?"

Josh wants to harm anybody who ever placed an unkindly hand on Tyler. Choking him, dragging him, Tyler has been through enough at the expense of those gnarled hands. Josh has to rethink every touch he wants to give Tyler, has to second-guess himself at every single thought that enters his head when it comes to Tyler and his body. He is tired. Josh tells him, "That's okay," and he can't help his voice breaking at the end. "It's okay if you want to sleep, Ty. You need to rest."

Tyler reaches over and holds Josh's wrist. He squeezes. "You, too, okay? You don't look well."

"I will," Josh promises. He watches Tyler give him a small smile before he slides along their bedroll. Wincing, never not wincing, Tyler lies flat on his back. He looks uncomfortable, so after setting the bandana on top of the first-aid kit, Josh shifts closer to help Tyler feel even a semblance of comfort. He fluffs their hoodie-pillow. He tucks Tyler in all nice and neat. And, leaning over to dig inside Tyler's own backpack, Josh places a wilting yellow flower behind Tyler's ear. There's a pile of them carefully wrapped in a matching yellow bandana, Tyler unable to fathom parting with these floral arrangements of hope. When Tyler realizes Josh has put one behind his ear, his eyes begin to water, and he cries like he's in a flood. "Hey," Josh tells him, lying down, letting Tyler keep the blanket. "You don't need to cry. Everything's going to be okay."

"It hurts," Tyler mouths.

"I know it does." Josh presses his palm to Tyler's cheek. "I know it does, Tyler, but it's going to be okay. Just go to sleep. It'll be better soon. I promise. I  _promise_."

Tyler shifts onto his side. He pales from the pain, from the want. He forces himself into sitting up, into pressing his palm to Josh's cheek, into mirroring Josh and pressing his forehead to Josh's forehead and pressing his lips to Josh's lips. Josh is slow, careful; he moves his hand to the back of Tyler's head and lowers Tyler to the bed. Tyler needs to rest. Tyler's eyes are already glassy.

Josh closes his eyes. He doesn't want to see.

*

He holds Tyler in his arms when Tyler dies. Josh lost count of how many times Tyler, curled up like a fetus next to him, has breathed his last breath and inhaled his very first upon opening his eyes by something akin to resurrection.

Josh didn't realize what was happening the first time Tyler died. He was lying in Josh's gray bed and surrounded by those gray walls when his eyes glazed over and a foam began to bubble from his lips. Josh shook and shook him—in retrospect, this was an unwise decision. Josh knows now, though, and in those moments where Josh is in Tyler's place, Tyler stays nearby, gently pets his hair, and speaks to him as if he were aware of his surroundings.

This happening to Josh, Josh's experiences are not nearly as extensive as Tyler's. Tyler's fits, if they can even be called such, they occur often, and Josh absolutely attributes that to Tyler's more painful and more frequent run-ins with the bishops and their vials of false light. Even now, as Josh sits next to Tyler's unconscious body, eyes closed and color to his face, Josh can see the burn marks he hadn't seen before along Tyler's neck. The pink hue that attached to his skin when Josh scrubbed away the blood, that hid the burns. They look like fingers. Josh wills them to go away. And in a matter of minutes, they do. It's a coincidence, Josh knows, but he still tells Tyler, "Wake up when you're ready," and Tyler, a beat later, opens his eyes.

He looks to Josh. Josh looks to him. "Are you okay?" Josh asks.

Tyler nods. He sits up, and he isn't in any pain.

"Hungry?" Josh tries.

Tyler nods. He smiles, too.

Tyler coined calling what happened to them as "dying". It wasn't like death in the usual sense; Tyler enjoyed laughing over him appropriating "death" from old people. Josh thought he was ridiculous.

He compared their bodies shutting down like it did when fronted with intense pain as death because he didn't know how else to describe it. He saw it as a coping mechanism, since both he and Josh realized the intense pain they had to be enduring didn't necessarily have to be  _physical_  pain, although physical pain continued to be the prime factor. Tyler's body shut down after stubbing his toe once, and he stayed in that porcelain-like state for an entire eight hours as his body healed.

It's funny, odd. Josh thinks it has to do with what the bishops put them through and how their minds have no way to recover from the trauma besides dying.

They always come back, though. Sometimes, Josh feels like he doesn't deserve to come back, and then Tyler wakes up beside him and smiles that smile of his, and Josh is thankful to see the sun rise.

"I think someone's cooking fish," Josh says, watching Tyler stretch his arms above his head with a too-big grin. "I can smell it. In the mood for that?"

Tyler places the yellow flower on the pillow. "I can have some fish."

They pull on more clothes and their shoes before stepping from their tent. It remains cold outside, no matter the sun in the sky and hidden partly by the clouds. Tyler keeps a scarf around his neck and burrows his nose inside as he waits for Josh to grab them a bite to eat.

Josh speaks his greetings to their friends, their family, and tells them, "We need to move soon. Tyler said they tried to grab him early this morning."

"Are you sure about that?" one of them probes, dressed in yellow. "Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he injured himself when he fell from a tree. He likes climbing trees, doesn't he?"

From his spot across the campfire, Tyler narrows his eyes. Josh narrows his own, too, and doesn't entertain their thoughts. He says, "You can be on first watch."

Metal bowls with fish and some kind of green vegetable in hand, Josh sits on the ground next to Tyler. Their knees touch. Tyler scoots closer, and their arms touch now. He pokes at the fish with his fork. "Do you believe me?" Tyler asks Josh, voice quiet. Despite the lively atmosphere, Tyler is wary of eavesdroppers.

Josh elbows Tyler. "I do." He bites into his fish and feels a bone grind against his teeth.

Tyler pokes at his fish again. "All right," he grumbles. "I  _was_  climbing trees, but that was to escape them. They crept up on me when I was peeing, and I peed on one of them totally by accident, and I… I ran away… I tried to shake them off and morph, but they grabbed me." Tyler lightly taps the back of his neck, slowly allowing his fingers to unfurl and cup the healing wound as he recalled his story. Josh shuffles as close as he can without being indecent. He would have climbed into Tyler's lap if he could.

"You couldn't morph?" he asks, still picking bones from his mouth. He drops splinter of bone after splinter of bone into Tyler's bowl. "Were they too close to you?"

Shaking his head, Tyler moves on to poke at his vegetables. His hand returns to holding his bowl as he shovels the green out of the way to find orange underneath. He nibbles on the carrots and speaks with his hand over his mouth. "Them being too close to me didn't matter. I managed to get my talons out, and I scratched them with what I could before I realized I should, uh, y'know…  _try to get away_." Tyler rolls his eyes and shrugs. "I got up in that tree, and I… I  _did_  fall, okay? I fell because they were coming up after me, and I stupidly thought I could escape with only one functioning wing." Dropping his fork in his bowl, Tyler holds up his hand, elbow on his leg, and stares at his open palm as if it contained all the answers. "Am I dumb, Josh?" he muses, staring right into his palm. "I'm a dumbass, right?"

"They caught you off guard," Josh tells him, placing his palm on Tyler's palm. He pats it.

Somehow, this doesn't help Tyler feel better. He sighs and shoves his mouth full of fish. He chews loudly. "I dunno. I really don't think they know we're  _here_ "—Tyler waves his fork—"but I could be wrong."

Josh gingerly presses a kiss to Tyler's cheekbone. "How'd you get away?"

"I'm a Goddamn miracle worker," Tyler scoffs. He laughs at his own joke, then says, "They had hold of my wing—and at this point, I was just… ready for them to take me back with them." A glance over at Josh, Tyler frowns at Josh's frown and mumbles, "It's easy to give up."

"I know it is."

Tyler clears his throat. "So, like… they had my wing, and they were pulling at it… and I was trying so hard to finish morphing, but I couldn't do it… and…" Tyler's smile is sudden. His whole face looks as if it might split in two from the quick transition. Tyler's lips actually crack, Tyler needing to pause to lick away the blood before speaking again. "And then, the sky opened up, and  _there he was_ —Clifford drove them away." Tyler places his hand over his heart fondly, leaning his head over to whisper to Josh, "He says hi."

Happiness is contagious. Too giddy for his own good, Josh coos, "How is he?!"

"We can visit him tonight," Tyler suggests.

Before Josh can respond, everybody in the camp turns their heads to watch a husband cling to his wife and scream at her to wake up. The husband grows silent as he soon joins her in a heap on the frozen ground.

It's not even a surprise anymore.

"Maybe you didn't break your bones from falling," Josh says. He picks at his peas, peeling away the shell. "Maybe your bones aren't used to you wanting to fly at will." Pop, pop, pop, Josh eats the peas in the pod.

Tyler munches on bones. "Maybe."

*

For dessert, they pregame with hair clippers. Tyler sits on an old bucket that rocks when he redistributes his weight. Josh controls the clippers, the guard down to a number one. Over and over, he slides it along Tyler's scalp, and over and over, Tyler hums with the hum of the razor. He does this out of comfort. It's a lovely sight to see.

"Now, you won't get stuff in it," Josh says, dusting off Tyler's shoulders and trying to ignore a child pleading for their mother to open her eyes. "Twigs and stuff," he adds with a nod. "You know? The bad stuff. You're keeping the good stuff in."

Someone else goes down.

Tyler quips, "What if there's something in the water?"

Josh kisses Tyler's forehead. "Good thing we boil it before drinking."

For their actual dessert, they spend time in their tent. Zipped up tight and beneath the blanket in their own two-person world, Tyler lies on top of Josh, an arm on each side of Josh's head. Elbows as props, Tyler scratches his fingers into Josh's curls and fucks Josh as if this might be their last time. Generous silence, just nodding heads and hushing moans into open mouths, it's all terribly cliché, but Josh can't get enough of Tyler's mouth, Tyler's hands, Tyler's hips. Josh holds him close. Tyler doesn't die in his arms tonight.

Once they clean up with spare bandanas, snap shut their coats, reapply yellow tape to their clothing, and lace up their boots, they step from their tent and, hand in hand, depart from the campsite. Dinner's welcoming crowd around the fire, they attract eyes, but these eyes are warm, and the hands that wave goodbye, they're warm, too. No words are spoken. The flames crackle, and it reminds Josh of home.

Their light source comes in the form of a flashlight, dim, like the one Josh had with him to escape, yet strong to the point they don't need to squint to see in the distance. Cool wind trembles the leaves atop the evergreens, quaking slightly to never let Josh stop thinking about Tyler falling from one of these. Josh hopes it was a smaller tree, one where it was somewhat low to the ground. Josh didn't like seeing Tyler hurt, couldn't even stand seeing Tyler's elbow scraped or his lip cut like it was at dinner. Like a heartbeat, Josh squeezes Tyler's hand, and Tyler, albeit delayed, squeezes in response.

"Hey," Tyler whispers. His flashlight beam aims for the trees and narrowly misses Josh's eyes. "I think I love you a lot. Just, like, man, in case you didn't know that, I love you a lot."

Damp soil beneath their feet, they step over rocks and small streams of water. The trees surround them, a canopy that keeps them contained, as the leaves shake and shake. Josh says, "I think I love you a lot, too," and watches Tyler's hand holding the flashlight shake on his own. Each shake makes the light dim until they're almost in complete darkness.

When the leaves stop shaking, Tyler continues. He's cold. Josh works the flashlight from his hand in order for Tyler to tug his coat tighter around him and to rewrap the scarf around his neck. "I should have worn a hat."

Without pause, Josh takes off his beanie and tugs it down on Tyler's head. "Here, dude," he says, moving in front of Tyler to ensure the hat covers Tyler's ears completely. With his hands on the sides of Tyler's scarfed neck, Josh smiles, and Tyler, kissing him, smiles, as well.

At that moment, their feathered friend shoots from the leaves to perch on a branch barely above their heads. He stares at each of them, wings tucked neatly into his body, as he situates his feet and tips forward. The point of his bloody beak taps each of their heads before he opens his beak and lets out a rasp in the form of "Hello!"

Only a little reluctant to part from Tyler, Josh throws his arms into the air and exclaims, "Clifford!" He rises onto his toes to hug the vulture.

Clifford's head rests comfortably on his shoulder. He croons at Josh's fingertips stroking the brown plumage of his neck. Gracefully and holding his breath while doing so, Josh lifts Clifford from the tree branch and allows Clifford to use his arm as a seat as he worms his head back to Josh's neck for more pets. "I missed you, too, little guy," Josh tells him, Tyler turning off the flashlight and shoving it in a pocket of his coat. "I'm sorry for not coming out to visit you more. Will you ever forgive me?"

The vulture huffs.

Tyler snorts. "He said, 'Only if you have dinner with me.'"

"He did not!" Josh gasps.

Smiling again, his eyes crinkling at the corners, Tyler holds out his arm. A butler for a very important benefactor, Tyler wiggles his fingers of his free hand in Clifford's face once he hops onto Tyler's arm. "Maybe if you spent more time with him, you'd know what he was saying." Clifford ruffles his feathers. Tyler kisses his beak.

Fingers back on Clifford's neck, Josh says, more to Clifford than Tyler, "I'm just scared. Do you know what I mean?" Clifford doesn't shy away from Josh despite his previous faux aversion. He shakes his tail feathers, and Josh runs his fingers down Clifford's spine. "I haven't… I haven't flown in… in  _forever_. What if something goes horribly wrong?"

"Like what?" Tyler counters, argumentative and still grinning. That's just Tyler. He loves to argue. "Scared you might, what, only morph one arm into a wing, and I'll laugh at you? That you'd grow your beak and won't be able to get your human lips back?"

Clifford hisses in Tyler's face.

"I think he's telling you to shut up," Josh guesses.

Eyes wide, Tyler goes, "Shit, you're right." He cups Clifford's neck and hisses right back. Josh has to rub his temples the sounds are so similar.

Another hiss pierces Josh's eardrums, but it isn't from the two previous culprits. However, the perfect lookout, Clifford picks up on it immediately as his head spins around and his beak parts to reply. He's quiet, listening, and Tyler's listening, too. Late nights and early mornings, Tyler has spent this time to relearn what was once purposed into a heinous action. This desire is stored in Josh, as well, and yet, he's scared. He wasn't lying about that.

In his own ways, Tyler is stronger than him. That much is true.

When Clifford pushes off into flight, Tyler launches himself at Josh. "We have to go," Tyler says, his weight heavy as he clutches Josh's arm and guides him farther and farther from their camp.

Clifford hovers above them, a watchful eye all around. The birds are singing their song, and it makes Josh's chest tighten. "They're here, aren't they?" He stops running, and Tyler doesn't even try to drag him through the mud. "They found us," he says.

In the distance, there are screams. The screams turn into birds wailing. Tipping his head toward the moon, Josh watches the new vultures darken the sky. Clifford edges higher. He spits. He cries. He waits.

Tyler wipes the tears from his cheeks, from his black, black eyes. "It's all my  _fault_."

Josh watches the vultures form their kettles and soar toward the horizon line. He feels his bones crave the satisfaction of dislocating. Flight and never fight, the need for this lies buried within these bones as they always have from a young age. It hurts. The pain forces Josh to his knees. Vomit pours from his mouth, a reaction that causes neither Tyler nor Clifford to worry. They have seen this all before.

"I've always trusted you," Josh says to Tyler, his nail beds bleeding onto the soil enriched with his regurgitated fish. "You didn't do this. This wasn't you. This just  _happens_."

Shivering, Tyler laments, "Welcome to Trench."

To their friend idly levitating by the low branches of the evergreens, Josh listens to Clifford sing his song. It's directed to him, and he can understand the words of the melody. He gazes at Tyler, Tyler with too black eyes and black lips and sharp talons stained with white skin and dark blood. Clifford's voice is here, a soft and measured, "Just look at Tyler. Look at him and breathe in so deeply you think your lungs might burst. You're almost there."

Tyler's wings are speckled with the brightest yellow. Josh thinks he might cry.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Curse At Worst](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15920886) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




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